A German fisherman named Konrad Fischer found the brown bottle near Kiel, Germany. He said he nearly threw the bottle back into the water after pulling it out of a fishing net. Then he noticed something inside.

    The bottle in good condition contained a Danish postcard with two German stamps, dated May 17, 1913. Although dampness had made most of the writing illegible（字迹模糊的）, the readable part of the message asked whoever found it to return it to an address in Berlin. It even contained two stamps to pay for postage.

    From the address, researchers found that the postcard was written by a man named Richard Platz, who was 20 years old when he wrote the message. While he was hiking on the Baltic coast with a nature appreciation group. he threw the bottle into the sea. Then the researchers began a search for any living relatives of his. Sure enough, they were able to find his 62-year-old granddaughter, Angela Erdmann, who still lives in Berlin.

  “It was almost unbelievable,”Erdmann said upon being presented with her grandfather's bottle and message.“That was a pretty moving moment. Tears rolled down my face."

    Erdmann never knew her grandfather，who died in 1946，but says that the discovery of the bottle has made her want to learn more about him.

    The bottle remained on display at the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg until May 1st. After that, the researchers examined the postcard and tried to figure out the meaning of the rest of the message.

    Previously, the oldest message found in a bottle spent nearly 98 years at sea and was discovered in April 2012, according to Guinness World Records.

                                                                                 World's Wonderful Libraries

    How cool can libraries be in an era of iPads and Kindles Morethan you think. Only if you know where to go.

                                                                                         Central Library

    The Central Library in Seattle,United States is modern and sophisticated. The building is an impressive work of art, which has tourists from around the world paying visits and taking tours. The library offers free self-guided cell phone tours, along with group tours.

    The library holds various art exhibitions, book signings andother events throughout the year.

    Open: Monday-Thursday 10 a.m-8 p.m, Friday-Saturday 10 a.m-6p.m, Sunday noon-6 p.m

                                                                                      Trinity College Library

    The Trinity College Library in Dublin is the oldest library in Ireland, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I.

    Not only is the exterior impressive, it boasts the largest single chamber library in the world, also known as the Long Room, which contains more than 200,000 of the library's oldest books.

    Various exhibitions and tour are available; admission 9(US 12)

    Open: Monday-Wednesday 9:30 a.m -5 p.m, Tuesday 9:30 a.m -9 p.m,Saturday 9:30 a.m -1 p.m, Sunday closed.

                                                                                    Bibliotheca Alexamdrina

    The Bibliotheca Alexamdrina is the revival(复兴) of theancient Royal Library of Alexandria, which was the largest and most influential library in the Greek world. It was built by Alexander the Great some 2, 300years ago.

    The new library was reborn in 2002 on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea after 10 years of designing, planning and construction.

Along with the standard libraries, there are four museumscovering science, Arabic Calligraphy, the history of printing and the Greekart.

    Open: Saturday-Thursday 9 a.m- 4 p.m.

                                                                                       Stuttgart City Library

    The Stuttgart City Library is controversial. Some say it's innovative, while others say it doesn't match its environment.

     Nevertheless, the library is one of the most interesting buildings in Germany. The design of the cubic facility was influenced by the ancient Pantheon in Rome. It serves as a multi-story meeting space that draws natural sunlight through the roof.

    Open: Monday-Saturday 9 a.m--9 p.m

    When she looked ahead，Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog.Her body was numb (麻木的)．She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours.

    Already she was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.Now，at age 34，her goal was to become the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast.

    On the morning of July 4th，1952，the sea was like an ice bath and the fog was so thick that she could hardly see her support boats.The wind was strong and it was raining heavily.Against the cold water of the sea，she struggled on—hour after hour.Millions of people at home were watching her in front of the television.

    In one of the boats，her mother and her trainer tried their best to encourage her.They told her it wasn't much farther.But all she could see was fog.They urged her not to give up.She never had...until then.With only a half mile to go，she asked to be pulled out.

    After thawing her cold body several hours later，she told a reporter，“Look，I'm not excusing myself，but if I could have seen land I might have made it.” It was not tiredness or even the cold water that defeated her.It was the fog.She was unable to see her goal.

    Two months later，she tried again.This time，despite the same thick fog，she swam with all her strength and her goal clearly pictured in her mind.She knew that somewhere behind that fog was land and this time she made it! Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel!  

    From the earliest times, man has been interested in art. People have often worked together to collect and save the world's art treasures.

    Fine art treasures from many countries are kept in an art museum called the Louvre in Paris, France. The works of art have been collected by the people of France over many centuries.

    The Louvre has not always been a museum. The first building was a fort(炮台).In 1190, it was the king's castle with high walls and a round tower. It had a moat to prevent his enemies from walking in.

    Over the years, the number of buildings around the castle grew. By 1350, the castle was no longer needed as a fort. The Louvre became a palace home for French kings and queens.

    During times of peace, new treasures were brought in. During days of war, many treasures were stolen, and the buildings were damaged.

    When Francis I became king of France in 1515, he brought in artists from many countries. One of the artists was Leonardo Da Vinci from Italy. Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is the best known painting in the museum today.

    In 1793, the Louvre became a public museum, just as it is now. It is a place where art treasures have been saved for everyone to enjoy.

    It is not only praise or punishment that determines a child's level of confidence. There are some other important ways we shape our kids—particularly by giving instructions and commands in a negative or positive choice of words. For example, we can say to a child "Don't run into traffic!" or "Stay on the footpath close to me." In using the latter, you will be helping your kids to think and act positively, and to feel competent in a wide range of situation, because they know what to do, and aren't scaring themselves about what not to do.

    Actually, it is all in the way the human mind works. What we think, we automatically rehearse. For example, if someone offered you a million dollars not to think of a blue monkey for two minutes, you wouldn't be able to do it. When a child is told "Don't fall off the tree," he will think of two things: "don't" and "fall off the tree". That is, he will automatically create the picture of falling off the tree in his mind. A child who is vividly imagining falling off the tree is much more likely to fall off. So it is far better to use "Hold on to the tree carefully."

    Clearly, positive instructions help kids to understand the right way to do things. Kids do not always know how to be safe, or how to react to the warning of the danger in negative words. So parents should make their commands positive. "Sam, hold on firm to the side of the boat" is much more useful than "Don't you dare to fall out of the boat?" or worse still "How do you think I'll feel if you drown?" The changes are small but difference is obvious.

    Children learn how to guide and organize themselves from the way we guide them with our words, so it pays to be positive.

    Do women make BETTER astronauts? Russia locks an all-female crew in space simulator (太空模拟器) for eight days to find out. Six Russian women have been sent into a spaceship to begin a unique experiment testing how an all- female crew would relate to others on a trip to the Moon and back.

    "It's interesting for us to see what is special about the way a female crew communicates," said Sergei Ponomaryov, the experiment's leader." it will be particularly interesting in terms of psychology," said the institute's director Igor Ushakov. "I'd like to wish you a lack of conflicts, even though they say that in one kitchen, two housewives find it hard to live together," he added.

    The volunteers include scientific researchers, a doctor and a psychologist. The test period simulates (模仿) a flight to the Moon and back, with the women carrying out 10 experiments covering psychology and human biology. Russia sent the first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963 but has fallen behind since. Last year, it sent its fourth female astronaut into space, Yelena Serova. Serava complained of a great deal of media interest in how she would wash her hair aboard the International Space Station, pointing out that male astronauts did not face the same line of questioning.

    The women found themselves fielding questions at a press conference about how they would act without men or makeup for eight days, "We are very beautiful without makeup," said participant Darya Komissarova. Her colleague Anna Kussmaul was more direct: "We are doing work. When you're doing your work, you don't think about men and women." They plan to spend their 11/2 hours per day of free time watching films, reading and playing board games. Team leader Yelena Luchnitskaya said she expected the women to deal with any conflict.